Holy Rosary reaches fundraising goal to help Ugandan Catholic youth

Students nearly double goal to help build well at Uganda Catholic school

Sarah Morris

The students of Holy Rosary Catholic School had one simple goal: To raise $500 to support their fellow Catholic students at Kalangaalo Roman Catholic Primary School in Uganda.

They have now succeeded. Principal Kathy Lorince said the school raised $935. The majority of the funds were donated from residents across the state following a story published earlier this month.

“People are good,” Lorince said. “If they believe in the cause, they’ll support it.”

The schools’ partnership began after Holy Rosary learned of H2O for Life, a non-profit organization that works to educate, engage and inspire youth to learn and take action through service-learning opportunities focused on the global water crisis.

“Every day, almost a billion people make a three-hour journey to gather water,” Lorince said in a letter to parents. “There is a water crisis throughout the world that is creating economic, social, educational and, worst of all, life-threatening conditions.”

Teacher Sarah Richards said, to help, they decided to help Kalangaalo raise $6,050 for a new well. Layne Arkansas in Stuttgart donated $200 while the students raised $160 during a Walk for Water event in May. During the walk, student Corbin Fischer said the walk was fun way to help other Catholic students.

The students also studied the issues surrounding the water crisis as well as their partner school and its community and country. It’s work that Richards said “teaches our kids to conserve water and how lucky they are to have clean water.”

However, Lorince and the students never expected the outpouring of support they received in the past few weeks. “The kids were very excited,” she added. “They couldn’t believe it when I said we had raised that much money.”

The collected $935 will now be credited toward purchasing a new water well for Kalangaalo, although it still needs $5,115 to complete the project.

An H2O for Life official said when the organization adds a project, it works to fund it that fiscal year through partners as well as general donations to the organization.

“So even if it’s not completely matched, we hope to have enough money through general donations to complete it and have it paid for before the new school year,” the official said.